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Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository

February 16, 2024

The Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository is a deep geological repository for the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel.[1][2] It is near the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in the municipality of Eurajoki, on the west coast of Finland. It will be the world's first long-term disposal facility for spent nuclear fuel.[a][3] It is being constructed by Posiva, and is based on the KBS-3 method of nuclear waste burial developed in Sweden by Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB (SKB). The facility is expected to be operational in the mid 2020s.[4][5][6]

Schematic of the geologic repository research tunnel at the Onkalo site near Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant, Finland.
"Onkalo" redirects here. For the Japanese pop song, see Onkalo (song).
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Location in Finland

History edit

After the Finnish Nuclear Energy Act[7] was amended in 1994 to specify that all nuclear waste produced in Finland must be disposed of in Finland, Olkiluoto was selected in 2000 as the site for a long-term underground storage facility for Finland's spent nuclear fuel. The facility, named "Onkalo" (meaning "small cave" or "cavity")[8] is being built in the granite bedrock at the Olkiluoto site, about five kilometers from the power plants. The municipality of Eurajoki issued a building permit for the facility in August 2003 and excavation began in 2004.[9]

The site was selected after a long process, which started in 1983 with a screening of the whole Finnish territory. From 1993 until 2000, four prospective sites were examined: Romuvaara in Kuhmo, Kivetty in Äänekoski, Olkiluoto in Eurajoki and Hästholmen in Loviisa. Besides geological and environmental considerations, the opinions of local residents were also taken into account. Eurajoki and Loviisa were singled out for being the locations with the highest local support. The former also had more favorable geographic conditions, thus in 1999 Posiva proposed it to the Finnish government as the selected location. The municipality of Eurajoki confirmed its approval of the site, and the national government ratified the decision in May 2001.[10]

Posiva started construction of the site in 2004.[11] The Finnish government issued the company a licence for constructing the final disposal facility on 12 November 2015.[12] As of June 2019 Posiva expects operations to begin in 2023.[13]

Construction edit

 
Pilot cave at final depth.

The facility was constructed by and will be operated by Posiva, a company owned by the two existing producers of nuclear power in Finland, Fortum and TVO. (Fennovoima, a company which was planning its first nuclear reactor, is not a stockholder of Posiva.)

The facility's constructions plans are divided into four phases:[citation needed]

  • Phase 1 (2004–09) focused on excavation of the large access tunnel to the facility, spiraling downward to a depth of 420 metres (1,380 ft).[14]
  • Phase 2 (2009–11) continued the excavation to a final depth of 520 metres (1,710 ft). The characteristics of the bedrock were studied in order to adapt the layout of the repository.
    • In 2012, Posiva submitted an application for a license to construct the repository. The license was granted in November 2015.[15]
  • Phase 3 (2015–17) construction of the repository
  • Phase 4, the encapsulation and burial of areas filled with spent fuel, is projected to begin around 2023.

Once in operation, the disposal process will involve placing twelve fuel assemblies into a boron steel canister and enclosing it in a copper capsule. Each capsule will then be placed in its own hole in the repository and overpacked with bentonite clay. The estimated cost of this project is about €818 million, which includes construction, encapsulation, and operating costs. The State Nuclear Waste Management Fund has approximately €1.4 billion from charges for generated electricity.[16]

The Onkalo repository is expected to be large enough to accept canisters of spent fuel for around one hundred years. At this point, the final encapsulation and burial will take place, and the access tunnel will be backfilled and sealed.

Criticism edit

In 2012, a research group at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, published research that suggests that the copper capsules are not as corrosion-proof as the companies planning the repositories claim (see KBS-3).[17] These claims were later refuted when SKB undertook follow-up studies, which indicated that the alleged corrosion process does not exist, and that the initial experiments were not correctly executed and/or the wrong conclusions were drawn.[18][19] In 2019, another study concluded that radiation effects should not significantly damage the canisters after 100,000 years.[19]

The spent nuclear fuel has 94% of the original energy content.[20] Spent nuclear fuel is a valuable resource that can be utilized in breeder reactors, and several other components also have useful applications. The fissile Pu content can contribute to humanity's conversion to clean and reliable energy, and burying it in permanent sealed storage will limit that potential.[21] As such, if the need would arise to utilize that energy, it will be relatively inexpensive to excavate the canisters back.

Treatment in media edit

Danish director Michael Madsen has co-written and directed a feature-length documentary Into Eternity (2010) where the initial phase of the excavation is featured and experts interviewed. The director's special emphasis is on the semantic difficulties in meaningfully marking the depository as dangerous for people in the distant future.[22][23]

American anthropologist Vincent Ialenti has written a book Deep Time Reckoning (2020) that explores how Onkalo repository "safety case" experts envisioned distant future ecosystems and reflected on the limits of human knowledge. His book is based on 32 months of in-person fieldwork in Finland.

A sketch of the facility is used as the album art for the related song "10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Resettlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories" by Emperor X.

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in the United States is for transuranic waste from dismantled nuclear weapons. Asse II and Morsleben in Germany were for low-level waste and intermediate-level waste.

References edit

  1. ^ Black, Richard (2006-04-27). "Finland buries its nuclear past". BBC. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  2. ^ Gopalkrishnan, Asha (2017-10-01). "The ominous underbelly of Finland's pioneering nuclear-waste repository". The Caravan. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  3. ^ Benke, Erika. "Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100,000 years". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
  4. ^ "Posiva - Posiva's tunnel backfill material production plant all ready for operation". www.posiva.fi. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
  5. ^ "Nuclear Energy in Finland | Finnish Nuclear Power - World Nuclear Association". www.world-nuclear.org.
  6. ^ "Onkalo Nuclear Waste Disposal Facility, Olkiluoto, Finland". Retrieved 2023-08-15.
  7. ^ "Nuclear Energy Act (990/1987) (in English)" (PDF). Finlex. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  8. ^ Räisänen, Alpo (2010). . Virittäjä. 4/2010 (114). Archived from the original on 2011-07-24. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  9. ^ (PDF). Energiateollisuus. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-02-23. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  10. ^ "Selecting the Site: the final disposal at Olkiluoto". Posiva. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  11. ^ "Repository in ONKALO". Posiva Oy. 2022-03-29. Retrieved 2022-07-24.
  12. ^ "Licence granted for Finnish used fuel repository". World Nuclear News. 2015-11-22. Retrieved 2020-03-03. Posiva expected construction work on the repository to start in late 2016 and operations to begin in 2023
  13. ^ "Work starts on Finnish fuel encapsulation plant". World Nuclear News. 2019-06-25. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  14. ^ "Finland's nuclear waste bunker built to last 100,000 years". CNN. 2010-12-09. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  15. ^ "ONKALO". Posiva. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  16. ^ "Nuclear Power in Finland". World Nuclear Association. February 2008. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  17. ^ Peter Szakálos and Seshadri Seetharaman (2012). "Technical Note 2012:17: Corrosion of copper canister" (PDF). SSM Rapport. Strålsäkerhetsmyndigheten. ISSN 2000-0456. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  18. ^ "Samlad redovisning om kopparkorrosion i syrgasfritt vatten" (PDF). SKB. 2015-03-12. Retrieved 2015-08-09.
  19. ^ a b Yang, Qigui; Toijer, Elin; Olsson, Pär (February 2019). "Technical Report TR-19-14: Analysis of radiation damage in the KBS-3 canister materials" (PDF). Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  20. ^ "Spent Nuclear Fuel: A Valuable Resource—Not a Waste". AaronLarson. 2022-08-01. Retrieved 2023-09-25.
  21. ^ "VALUE RECOVERY FROM NUCLEAR WASTE". BARC. 2022-08-01. Retrieved 2023-09-25.
  22. ^ Edan Corkill (2012-01-15). "Danger! Nuclear waste! Keep out — forever!". Japan Times. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  23. ^ . Intoeternitymovie.com. Archived from the original on 2015-02-04. Retrieved 2020-03-03.

Further reading edit

  • Gordon, Helen (2017-04-24). "Journey deep into the Finnish caverns where nuclear waste will be buried for millenia". Wired UK.
  • Ialenti, Vincent (2020). Deep Time Reckoning: How Future Thinking Can Help Earth Now. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262539265.

External links edit

  • "Envisioning Landscapes Of Our Very Distant Future" (Vincent Ialenti) NPR Cosmos & Culture (2014).
  • "Pondering 'Deep Time' Could Inspire New Ways To View Climate Change" (Vincent Ialenti) NPR Cosmos & Culture (2014).
  • "Deep Time Reckoning" (Vincent Ialenti) The MIT Press (2020).
  • "Death & Succession Among Finland's Nuclear Waste Experts" (Vincent Ialenti) Physics Today, 70, 10, 48 (2017).
  • "Sebastian Musch: The Atomic Priesthood and Nuclear Waste Management - Religion, Sci-fi Literature and the End of our Civilization

61°14′06″N 21°28′56″E / 61.23513°N 21.4821°E / 61.23513; 21.4821 (Onkalo entrance)

February 16, 2024
onkalo, spent, nuclear, fuel, repository, deep, geological, repository, final, disposal, spent, nuclear, fuel, near, olkiluoto, nuclear, power, plant, municipality, eurajoki, west, coast, finland, will, world, first, long, term, disposal, facility, spent, nucl. The Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository is a deep geological repository for the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel 1 2 It is near the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in the municipality of Eurajoki on the west coast of Finland It will be the world s first long term disposal facility for spent nuclear fuel a 3 It is being constructed by Posiva and is based on the KBS 3 method of nuclear waste burial developed in Sweden by Svensk Karnbranslehantering AB SKB The facility is expected to be operational in the mid 2020s 4 5 6 Schematic of the geologic repository research tunnel at the Onkalo site near Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant Finland Onkalo redirects here For the Japanese pop song see Onkalo song class notpageimage Location in Finland Contents 1 History 2 Construction 3 Criticism 4 Treatment in media 5 See also 6 Notes 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External linksHistory editAfter the Finnish Nuclear Energy Act 7 was amended in 1994 to specify that all nuclear waste produced in Finland must be disposed of in Finland Olkiluoto was selected in 2000 as the site for a long term underground storage facility for Finland s spent nuclear fuel The facility named Onkalo meaning small cave or cavity 8 is being built in the granite bedrock at the Olkiluoto site about five kilometers from the power plants The municipality of Eurajoki issued a building permit for the facility in August 2003 and excavation began in 2004 9 The site was selected after a long process which started in 1983 with a screening of the whole Finnish territory From 1993 until 2000 four prospective sites were examined Romuvaara in Kuhmo Kivetty in Aanekoski Olkiluoto in Eurajoki and Hastholmen in Loviisa Besides geological and environmental considerations the opinions of local residents were also taken into account Eurajoki and Loviisa were singled out for being the locations with the highest local support The former also had more favorable geographic conditions thus in 1999 Posiva proposed it to the Finnish government as the selected location The municipality of Eurajoki confirmed its approval of the site and the national government ratified the decision in May 2001 10 Posiva started construction of the site in 2004 11 The Finnish government issued the company a licence for constructing the final disposal facility on 12 November 2015 12 As of June 2019 update Posiva expects operations to begin in 2023 13 Construction edit nbsp Pilot cave at final depth The facility was constructed by and will be operated by Posiva a company owned by the two existing producers of nuclear power in Finland Fortum and TVO Fennovoima a company which was planning its first nuclear reactor is not a stockholder of Posiva The facility s constructions plans are divided into four phases citation needed Phase 1 2004 09 focused on excavation of the large access tunnel to the facility spiraling downward to a depth of 420 metres 1 380 ft 14 Phase 2 2009 11 continued the excavation to a final depth of 520 metres 1 710 ft The characteristics of the bedrock were studied in order to adapt the layout of the repository In 2012 Posiva submitted an application for a license to construct the repository The license was granted in November 2015 15 Phase 3 2015 17 construction of the repository Phase 4 the encapsulation and burial of areas filled with spent fuel is projected to begin around 2023 Once in operation the disposal process will involve placing twelve fuel assemblies into a boron steel canister and enclosing it in a copper capsule Each capsule will then be placed in its own hole in the repository and overpacked with bentonite clay The estimated cost of this project is about 818 million which includes construction encapsulation and operating costs The State Nuclear Waste Management Fund has approximately 1 4 billion from charges for generated electricity 16 The Onkalo repository is expected to be large enough to accept canisters of spent fuel for around one hundred years At this point the final encapsulation and burial will take place and the access tunnel will be backfilled and sealed Criticism editIn 2012 a research group at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm Sweden published research that suggests that the copper capsules are not as corrosion proof as the companies planning the repositories claim see KBS 3 17 These claims were later refuted when SKB undertook follow up studies which indicated that the alleged corrosion process does not exist and that the initial experiments were not correctly executed and or the wrong conclusions were drawn 18 19 In 2019 another study concluded that radiation effects should not significantly damage the canisters after 100 000 years 19 The spent nuclear fuel has 94 of the original energy content 20 Spent nuclear fuel is a valuable resource that can be utilized in breeder reactors and several other components also have useful applications The fissile Pu content can contribute to humanity s conversion to clean and reliable energy and burying it in permanent sealed storage will limit that potential 21 As such if the need would arise to utilize that energy it will be relatively inexpensive to excavate the canisters back Treatment in media editDanish director Michael Madsen has co written and directed a feature length documentary Into Eternity 2010 where the initial phase of the excavation is featured and experts interviewed The director s special emphasis is on the semantic difficulties in meaningfully marking the depository as dangerous for people in the distant future 22 23 American anthropologist Vincent Ialenti has written a book Deep Time Reckoning 2020 that explores how Onkalo repository safety case experts envisioned distant future ecosystems and reflected on the limits of human knowledge His book is based on 32 months of in person fieldwork in Finland A sketch of the facility is used as the album art for the related song 10 000 Year Earworm to Discourage Resettlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories by Emperor X See also edit nbsp Finland portal nbsp Energy portal nbsp Nuclear technology portalEnergy in Finland Nuclear power in Finland Long time nuclear waste warning messagesNotes edit The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in the United States is for transuranic waste from dismantled nuclear weapons Asse II and Morsleben in Germany were for low level waste and intermediate level waste References edit Black Richard 2006 04 27 Finland buries its nuclear past BBC Retrieved 2020 03 03 Gopalkrishnan Asha 2017 10 01 The ominous underbelly of Finland s pioneering nuclear waste repository The Caravan Retrieved 2020 03 03 Benke Erika Finland s plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100 000 years www bbc com Retrieved 2023 08 15 Posiva Posiva s tunnel backfill material production plant all ready for operation www posiva fi Retrieved 2023 08 15 Nuclear Energy in Finland Finnish Nuclear Power World Nuclear Association www world nuclear org Onkalo Nuclear Waste Disposal Facility Olkiluoto Finland Retrieved 2023 08 15 Nuclear Energy Act 990 1987 in English PDF Finlex Retrieved 2020 03 03 Raisanen Alpo 2010 Onkamo and other place names Virittaja 4 2010 114 Archived from the original on 2011 07 24 Retrieved 2020 03 03 Nuclear Waste Management in Finland PDF Energiateollisuus Archived from the original PDF on 2011 02 23 Retrieved 2020 03 03 Selecting the Site the final disposal at Olkiluoto Posiva Retrieved 2020 03 03 Repository in ONKALO Posiva Oy 2022 03 29 Retrieved 2022 07 24 Licence granted for Finnish used fuel repository World Nuclear News 2015 11 22 Retrieved 2020 03 03 Posiva expected construction work on the repository to start in late 2016 and operations to begin in 2023 Work starts on Finnish fuel encapsulation plant World Nuclear News 2019 06 25 Retrieved 2020 03 03 Finland s nuclear waste bunker built to last 100 000 years CNN 2010 12 09 Retrieved 2020 03 03 ONKALO Posiva Retrieved 2020 03 03 Nuclear Power in Finland World Nuclear Association February 2008 Retrieved 2020 03 03 Peter Szakalos and Seshadri Seetharaman 2012 Technical Note 2012 17 Corrosion of copper canister PDF SSM Rapport Stralsakerhetsmyndigheten ISSN 2000 0456 Retrieved 2020 03 03 Samlad redovisning om kopparkorrosion i syrgasfritt vatten PDF SKB 2015 03 12 Retrieved 2015 08 09 a b Yang Qigui Toijer Elin Olsson Par February 2019 Technical Report TR 19 14 Analysis of radiation damage in the KBS 3 canister materials PDF Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co Retrieved 2020 03 03 Spent Nuclear Fuel A Valuable Resource Not a Waste AaronLarson 2022 08 01 Retrieved 2023 09 25 VALUE RECOVERY FROM NUCLEAR WASTE BARC 2022 08 01 Retrieved 2023 09 25 Edan Corkill 2012 01 15 Danger Nuclear waste Keep out forever Japan Times Retrieved 2020 03 03 Into Eternity Intoeternitymovie com Archived from the original on 2015 02 04 Retrieved 2020 03 03 Further reading editGordon Helen 2017 04 24 Journey deep into the Finnish caverns where nuclear waste will be buried for millenia Wired UK Ialenti Vincent 2020 Deep Time Reckoning How Future Thinking Can Help Earth Now Cambridge Massachusetts MIT Press ISBN 9780262539265 External links edit Envisioning Landscapes Of Our Very Distant Future Vincent Ialenti NPR Cosmos amp Culture 2014 Pondering Deep Time Could Inspire New Ways To View Climate Change Vincent Ialenti NPR Cosmos amp Culture 2014 Deep Time Reckoning Vincent Ialenti The MIT Press 2020 Death amp Succession Among Finland s Nuclear Waste Experts Vincent Ialenti Physics Today 70 10 48 2017 Sebastian Musch The Atomic Priesthood and Nuclear Waste Management Religion Sci fi Literature and the End of our Civilization61 14 06 N 21 28 56 E 61 23513 N 21 4821 E 61 23513 21 4821 Onkalo entrance Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository amp oldid 1194571728, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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